Vinyl Outsold Downloads In The UK Last Month

The vinyl resurgence continues with a new report saying that, for the week after Thanksgiving, the value of vinyl sales was greater than the value of digital downloads in Britain.

The U.K.’s Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) recently announced that, between November 28 and December 4, £2.4 million was spent on vinyl albums versus £2.1 million on downloads. That’s a major swing for both formats compared to the same time in 2015 with vinyl sales up 100% while downloads were down 52%.

While some are pointing to the Christmas season and the want for a physical gift, the argument really doesn’t stand up as sales weren’t down for downloads in the same period last year. The biggest blow to downloads is, obviously, the move to streaming where consumers have no reason to put digital copies of music on their phones and other devices when they can simply stream whatever and as much as they want through a service like Spotify.

Kim Bayley, the Chief Executive of ERA, told Britain’s Team Rock “This is an illustration of the ongoing trend of people rediscovering the vinyl format. Clearly vinyl is a much more attractive product than digital downloads. And it’s also helped by supermarkets now stocking vinyl and, not only growing the existing market, but creating a new market for vinyl altogether.”

When looked at by units, downloads are still the champ but, because of the higher cost of vinyl products, the old school format now rules in sales dollars.

New statistics out of the USA put a reality check back into the music industry. For starters, for a solo artist in the USA to earn the minimum wage ($1,160 per month) they need to sell 12,399 tracks on iTunes. For a group, you can divide that figure by the number of members in the band.